Lately I’ve started to notice that the Internet has ruined some words for me. These are perfectly good words (well, some of them are, anyway…); words I’ve even used myself, and probably still do from time to time. But their use on the Internet has totally ruined them, to the extent that a little part of me dies every time I see them used. (And a little part of me exaggerates every chance it gets, clearly. Sorry about that.) For instance:

“LOL”

OK, so my very first example and it’s not even a word. I know. But this is actually my point: “LOL” has started to be used on the Internet almost as if it was one. In fact, I bet there are kids out there now who don’t even know that “LOL” used to mean “laughing out loud.” Seriously. And it’s not like it’s often used these days to indicate that the person is actually laughing out loud, is it? No, it’s used almost as a kind of punctuation. Like, people will write, “I’m off to bed now, lol!” Or “I’m looking forward to eating dinner tonight, lol!” Or, “I’m really tired, lol!”

WHY? Why are they laughing out loud at these things? Oh, that’s right, they’re NOT. They’re just saying it. For no reason. I AM NOT LAUGHING. OUT LOUD OR OTHERWISE.

Note: Yes, I know I’ve done this too, so no need to go through my archives and point it out to me, lol!

“Cute”

I write about fashion for a living. This means that I also READ a lot about fashion. I’ve noticed that most people use the word “cute” a lot to describe items of clothing and shoes. This is perfectly fine, of course, but they use it almost as if there were no other words available to them. Seriously, I’ve had comments on The Fashion Police from people who’ve said stuff like, “Today I’m wearing a cute skirt with a cute sweater, some cute shoes and this really cute handbag. I think I look really cute!” And EVERYONE does this. If I post a picture of something that’s… er…beautiful, say, I will get twenty comments, all saying that the thing is “cute!”. (I’ll also get half a dozen saying I need to die now, but that’s another post altogether…)

I’m aware that this is irrational of me, but I’ve now started to cringe every time I see or hear the word “cute”. I have banned myself from using it. LOL!

“Sorry”

GOD. This word is currently my Public Enemy Number 1. Now, don’t get me wrong: “sorry” is absolutely fine, as long as the person IS ACTUALLY SORRY. And most of the time? They freaking aren’t. Yes, I’m talking about the good old “Sorry, but…” I think I may have mentioned this before. When someone starts a sentence with the words “Sorry, but…” you instantly know that they ARE NOT SORRY and are just going to try and make you feel bad. There are some days when almost ALL the comments I get at The Fashion Police start with the word “sorry”. And I don’t understand why, either, because often the people are actually agreeing with me. Like, I’ll post a picture of an ugly dress, and describe it as an “ugly dress” in the title. It will be filed in the “ugly dress” category and I’ll probably say something in the post to the effect of, “Hey, this is not very cute.” And then I’ll get a bunch of comments from people, all saying, “Sorry, but I think this dress is ugly.” Um, yeah, so do I. Why are you sorry?

Anyway. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned this, because when I mentioned my irritation with the misuse of “LOL” to Terry a few weeks ago, I suddenly started getting a bunch of text messages and emails. They all purported to be from Rubin, and they would all say things like, “Amber, I need a pee, lol!” Or “Amber, is time for my dinner yet, lol!” Sometimes they would just say, “LOL!” Today I received this:

lol!

And last month, when it snowed? Terry took the rubbish out one night, and when I looked out of the window afterwards, I saw this:

that is funny because i was thinking just this today..I am gping to start a group about words that drive me mad…weird…so far I got three m's, meal, I've been for a meal, morning, when whoever you meet says 'morning' especially in a 9-5 job where you hear it 30 times before 12pm, I just say, hiya…the last m that came in to my head, was men in yellow jackets at howden health centre car park, or any other one, who parade around thinking they own all the cars and point out space to you that you are just going into and like to stick big white stickers on your car that never come off 6 months later…and that's my lot for now…the message in the snow, that's terry, I would be out there rubbing it all off though, black affronted, hee…

Haha, "meal" doesn't bother me, but you've just reminded me of another word I hate for no real reason, which is "frock". It actually makes me shudder, especially when people talk about "getting frocked up". Arrgh!

I know it's an Americanism but 'super' (as in super cute) really gets on my nerves. More so because I used it for the first time today and wanted to cut my own hands off after I sent the email with it in.

How about "literally"? If everything that was described as literally happening, literally happened, this would be one interesting world… 🙂 I mean, there are literally people all over the place, literally dying from embarrassment, or literally blowing steam out their ears when they get angry…. Sorry, but I just had to vent.

Oh, I just thought of another two that are currently irritating me, though I guess these are more because of the misspelling than the actual words themselves (and one's a phrase, not a word, just to be pedantic!):

The first is "hun", used as a short form of honey. The short form of honey is "hon". A "hun" is someone like Attila.

The second is "here here". The correct spelling is "hear hear" as in "what you said is so good, we're celebrating hearing it!" (or something to that effect!).

Sometimes I think I'd be much happier not having a good grasp of spelling and grammar… if you don't know it's wrong, it can't irritate you!

I second Mags' "literally," vote. This does not mean "seriously" or "really" or anything else that most people use it for. Also: "seriously." I was over-using it myself until I noticed Dave had picked it up from me, and now I cringe whenever I hear it. I seriously, literally cringe.

"At" is a word which is used everyday by almost everyone. But for some reason, lots of Americans feel the need to place "at" at the end of questions, when in fact, it is completely unnecessary. This is a trend which began, I would say, about four or five years ago, and has grown in popularity since then. It drives me crazy every time I hear it. Do people in the U.K. do this?

My mother-in-law sends text messages signed off with 'LOL Mum'. For ages I thought she was signing off with 'laugh out loud' and it was very inappropriate for some of the messages. Like she tells me that 'Nan's hip surgery went well, lol'. Creepy. Turns out? LOL for many years before laughing out loud happened meant 'lots of love'.

Yes, I agree with all of these. Can I add "random" to the list – I worked with a girl who used to say "that's so random" about everything, even things that were not random at all. Oh also my sister moved to Bristol a year ago, and when she visited for Xmas everything was "LUSH" – "That Christmas pudding was so LUSH" or "Oh my god Am, that top is so LUSH" Drove me nuts.

Exactly! And this has reminded me of another one, which is when people say, “What do you think to this?” NO! What do you think OF this, surely? (Not sure if this is maybe a dialect thing somewhere… I see it a lot on forums.)

I'd apologise to Terry for the following comment, except you'd pull me up on the use of "sorry" ;-}

I'm fine with lol when used in response to something, but have a problem with 'lolz'. I don't even know what it means – is it the sarcastic use ( http://www.internetslang.com/LOLZ.asp ), or some deprecated plural of 'lol' ( http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lo… )? So not only irritating but confusing too!

I'm still laughing at the last two pictures. Out loud. 😉 I hate words having to do with Twitter, especially words that have been appropriated or created for special meanings related to Twitter (tweets, twat, tweeple) and any word with a lower-case 'i' tacked on the front. I assume in both cases it has something to do with wanting a term to sound like it belongs to the club, but the practice makes my skin crawl.

Lol should only ever be used for amusing kitties. I can’t tell you how much I hate lol. In the days of MSN, when someone couldn’t think of anything else to say and there was an awkward silence, they’d fill the gap with lol. HATEHATEHATE. Today some idiot on a forum who was trying to pick a fight with me ended off her rant with lol. I told her as soon as I got that message, that she had completely undermined her entire argument with that silly childish lol. Who does that??? ‘Why must you be so sarcastic, we can write what we want on this topic, nobody cares what you think lol.’ Utter stupidity